Epiphany
by Chaltab
Summary: Something wicked is afoot this Christmas season, and it centers around Draco Malfoy. What dark ritual does he have planned? Will Harry be able to figure it out, or will he, as Hermione fears, do something stupid?
1. Part One

_A/N: Considering Harry's Christmases at Hogwarts are pretty well documented in the books, this story is a sort of hypertime tale. It doesn't really fit anywhere. Also I apologize for the lateness of this fic, but you know how Christmas is. Part Two will be up on January 6th, the traditional Day of the Magi._

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**Epiphany**

If Harry wanted to peg the moment when the whole affair began it was thirteen days before Christmas. Hermione might have cited an Arithmancy textbook to explain to him why that should have been a sign to avoid getting involved, but Harry wouldn't have really listened. Hermione didn't get it. If anything remained constant in Harry's life it was that he did not trust Draco Malfoy. Not only did he _not_ trust Malfoy—Harry was psychologically _incapable_ of trusting Malfoy. Malfoy's father was a racist git, ex-Death Eater, practitioner of the Dark Arts—servant of Voldemort. And he had instilled all that rubbish into his son. In his second year, Harry had witnessed first hand Draco gleefully wishing for the deaths of Muggleborn students. That colored every thought and action that Harry witnessed Draco take.

The proper start of the whole ordeal was a conversation Harry overheard between Draco and Goyle during his Potions class. Harry was trying to tune out Snape, who had interrupted his lecture on the uses of Salamander tails to hurl a string of insults at Neville, and had leaned back in his seat far enough to overhear them talking.

"Where's this place now?" Goyle said.

"On the side street," Malfoy answered. "Behind that ratty book shop."

Goyle snorted. "Like I'd notice a book shop. Haven't opened a book all semester."

Malfoy laughed, but the laugh didn't conceal his annoyance. Harry wondered what it was like having a pair of morons as your closest companions. If not for the fact that Malfoy's relative intelligence made his hatred of Muggleborns all the more infuriating, Harry might have had a twinge of sympathy for him.

Thanks to the hectic nature of the last few days of class before the holiday, Harry mostly forgot about the conversation. That was, until he entered the Great Hall on the first day of the break and immediately heard the arrogant drawl of Malfoy chatting it up at the Slytherin table. He arched his eyebrows, swallowed some metaphorical bile, and took a seat between Ron and Ginny.

"What the blazes is Malfoy doing here?" he asked. "Staying to make my life miserable?"

"Looks like it, sometimes," Ron said, stuffing a strip of bacon in his mouth.

Ginny tilted her head and gave Ron a look of annoyance. "He's been running his mouth since he got here. He said that his parents suddenly decided a holiday in Paris would do them wonders and made Malfoy stay here."

"You don't sound like you buy that story," Harry observed.

Ginny tilted her head forward, her eyes sparkling. "Yes, well, since when could Malfoy tell a convincing lie?"

Harry nodded and smiled at her. "Think we should investigate."

"That's bollocks, Harry," Ron said, crumbs of bread falling out of his mouth. "Even Malfoy's not enough of a git to be up to something around Christmas."

"He was enough of a git to hope Hermione got killed by the basilisk," Ginny said with a shudder. "I think you should do it, Harry."

Ron stopped eating long enough to nod. "Yeah, maybe you're right." The look on Ron's face told Harry that he was relieved Hermione had gone home to spend the Christmas Holiday with her family. Harry, on the other hand, wanted her advice, and immediately after breakfast he headed back up to his room to jot down a letter for Hermione. Two days later Hedwig returned with her reply:

**Don't do anything stupid, Harry.**

_Well, _Harry thought, _that was a lot of help. _

He stuffed the note into his blue jeans pocket and headed down towards the Gryffindor common room. Ron had organized a tournament using rules from Wizards Chess and a fantasy role-playing game in which wizards pretended to be Muggles and had to deal with the perils of life in a bustling metropolis. Harry didn't think the details were quite right, since it seemed like you couldn't take two steps in that game without getting attacked by a mugger or nearly run over by a car. Someone at the Wizarding world branch of Hasbro clearly hadn't payed close enough attention in Muggle Studies.

Harry passed Ron's game and headed out of the common room and down to the great hall, where enchanted suits of armor were intoning carols and McGonagall was chasing Peeves around with her wand drawn and aimed at him.

Wondering too a table where some small sweets and cakes had been left out for students congregating in the hall, Harry took a couple homemade chocolate frogs and sat down at the Gryffindor table. He heard Malfoy's drawl on the other side of the room, but it was noisy enough that he couldn't quite make out what was being said. He waited for a bit, wishing Hermione had given some useful advice, until he heard his nemesis get up and begin to leave along with an entourage of Slytherins. Harry got up, acting on impulse, and followed him out of the great hall into the corridor outside. More suits of armor lined those halls, and the Slytherins walked alongside them chatting animatedly.

An idea occurred to Harry, and he took off at a sprint, running a longer route through the castle that put him between Malfoy and the stairwell that led down to the Slytherin dungeon. Hoping his switching practice had been enough, Harry took out his wand and aimed it at one of the caroling suits of armor.

"_Wingardium Leviosa_," he said, swishing and flicking. He had to concentrate to move the entire suit of armor a few feet to the left, not dropping any of it.

"Why, excuse me!" the armor said, sounding offended. It tilted its head to look at Harry. "Was I in your way?"

"No, I just need to borrow you for a minute." Harry felt embarrassed, but willed his flesh not to turn red. Harry stood where the armor had been, then aimed his and at it. "_Alterus segmentatum_!"

There was a flicker as reality protested the use of magic, and then Harry's clothing appeared where where the armor had been; at the same moment, the armor suddenly surrounded Harry's body. It was an ill fit, and Harry felt completely off balance, so he leaned back to brace himself against the wall.

"I'm not sure I like the idea of having students inside me," the armor said. "Old Sanchez on the second floor had a first year stuck in him for three days once. Nasty business, that."

"Shush," Harry hissed. "I'm trying to spy on someone."

A moment later, Malfoy and his cronies came striding up the hall, congratulating themselves on how rich they were and how much they disliked Muggleborns. Draco was saying something about Pansy Parkinson, and then about his father, and finally Crabbe asked a question that Harry couldn't quite make out. Everyone went dead silent and suddenly the soft caroling was the only thing Harry could hear, aside from his own breathing.

Then Draco spoke. "Nobody is supposed to know about that but you and Goyle. Thanks for blurting it out in front of everyone."

"What's the big deal?" Crabbe asked. "Nobody here is gonna rat you out."

One of the Slytherins—Zabini, Harry thought—spoke up. "D... doesn't that require _blood_ Draco?"

"It does," Malfoy said evenly, though Harry could detect apprehension in his voice. "And... wait."

Through the slits in the helmet, Harry could see Malfoy walking over towards the suit of armor he was hiding in, a look of curiosity on his face. "This one isn't singing those infernal carols," Malfoy said. "Damn thing must be broken."

Draco's face got close—too close for comfort, and Harry stopped breathing, started sweating more profusely. Malfoy reached up to remove the mask, and dread welled up in Harry's chest. Malfoy's fingers touched the cold metal. Then Zabini spoke again.

"Looks like someone left their clothes lying here," he said, laughing. "Muggleborn or Muggle-lover by the looks. Feh. Running around naked like some ignorant sod."

Malfoy nodded and removed his wand, pointing it at the statue. "Maybe not naked," he hissed. His eyes narrowed and Harry clenched his own wand more tightly. If it was going to come to a duel, the armor would be a disadvantage, but there was no way to get out of it without blowing his cover. Harry's lungs burned for air, and he exhaled as quietly as possible, then tried to inhale again but found his lungs refused to obey.

"MALFOY!" shouted another voice. "What the devil are you doing?" It was Professor McGonagall, storming up the hall in a foul mood after dealing with Peeves.

Draco hesitated for a moment, and then lowered his wand. "Nothing, Professor," he said. "I, uh, just noticed this suit had stopped caroling and I was going to fix it."

"Well, thank you for your thoughtfulness," McGonagall said, "But we have students in charge of maintaining the holiday atmosphere and you're not one of them. Michelle Coplin is in charge of the armored carolers, so run along or I'll have to take points from Slytherin."

Harry heard her step right next to the armor, and stoop down, then she stepped into his line of sight and handed Draco the wadded up clothing he'd left when. "And take these to your dorm, don't leave them lying in the middle of the floor."

A moment later, Draco was gone, and McGonagall watched them turn the corner, then whirled around and stormed off in the other direction.

Harry, meanwhile, slowly began taking the armor off piece by piece, and then took the least populated route back towards the Gryffindor tower. Much to his humiliation, he passed by Cho on the way, who stared at him and asked where his clothes were.

"The Slytherin dorm," Harry said, his face turning red. "Long story."

The rest of the Gryffindor boys were so engrossed in Ron's game when he got back to the common room that none of them noticed he was in nothing but his underwear. He ran up to his room and threw on some clothing, then crashed into a chair in the common room and sat, thinking until supper.

Between Ron and Ginny, he whispered a brief recounting of what he'd overheard.

"A blood ritual?" Ginny said, her eyes like saucers. "That's heavy stuff. What are you going to do?"

"We've got to know more," Ron said. "What if he's trying to do... you know, that Jamaican style magic where you've got a doll you can torture and then it happens to the real person?"

"Voodoo," Harry supplied.

"And it's from Haiti," Ginny corrected.

"Aw'right, aw'right," Ron said. "So if he's gonna do some dark magic, we need to find out what, right? Why don't you sneak into Slytherin's dungeon and listen to them? You've got an invisibility cloak."

"An intangibility cloak would be helpful," Harry said grimly. "And something to make myself inaudible. I don't think I'll be able to hold my breath all night."

That afternoon, in Gryffindor tower, Harry was relaxing and trying to read _Beetle the Bard_ when Fred and George ambushed him, leaning over opposite sides of his armchair with a big grin on their faces. "A little birdy told us that you need some quality stealth gear!" said Fred.

"So we thought we'd lend you a hand," George said, removing his hands from behind his back and pulling out a pair of fuzzy black earmuffs. There was an F on one side and a G on the other.

"Presenting the Weasley Brothers Patented (not really) Sound Canceling Headset!"

"Guys, even assuming you heard right," Harry began, not wanting to give his game away altogether. "Those are ear muffs. I need to be silent, not deaf."

"Ah, my friend," Fred said, grinning broadly. "These are _enchanted_ ear muffs. Put them on your ears and they cancel out all the sound YOU make while leaving everyone else in the vicinity perfectly audible."

Harry's eyes widened with delight. If those things worked...

He took them from George's hand and put them on his ears; at first it seem like nothing happened. He looked up at them and told them so... or rather, he tried to. He felt his vocal cords vibrating in his throat, but no sound came out of his mouth. His eyes lit up again, this time in alarm.

"Ah, another satisfied customer," Fred said.

Harry reached up and took the ear muffs off. "What do you want for them?"

George nodded magnanimously. "Oh, normally they'd go for around three galleons, but in the spirit of Christmas, consider this pair a gift."

"A gift!?" Fred blurted. "I spent four hours working on the enchantments for these. How can you just give them away."

"Word of mouth, Fred. Harry's satisfaction and subsequent viral advertising will bring the customers clambering to our doors."

"But Harry's independently wealthy! If anyone should throwing a bone, it should be him to us!"

"Nonsense," George said. "We, as the older and wiser sages to Harry's youthful innocence, should be..."

Harry heard no more of the argument, darting up the stairs to his dorm and rummaging through his trunk until he found his invisibility cloak. He wrapped it around him inverted so that it looked like an ordinary traveling cloak and ran through the winding corridors of Hogwarts. He flipped the cloak around and put on the headphones, and then started towards the dungeon where the Slytherins lived; the fact that he couldn't hear his own footsteps even at a dead sprint was slightly unnerving, but when he stood outside beside the portrait huffing and puffing from his jog while Slytherins came and went, oblivious to his presence, he couldn't help but smile.

Eventually he waited for a rather thin seventh year to open the portrait hole and slipped in beside him, forgetting the password before the portrait had finished closing. He crept into a corner by the fireplace and sat down against the wall.

It was some time later when a loud laugh from Malfoy startled him awake, and only then did he realized he had dozed off. He looked up through the cloak to see Malfoy smirking and holding up a young blonde girl's wand above her head while she struggled to get it back from him.

"Mudbloods like you aren't supposed to have wands," he spat. "Why don't you crawl home to your worthless Muggle parents and leave magic to the _real _witches and wizards."

"Give it back, Malfoy!" the girl protested.

Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out his wand, smiling about the fact that he couldn't be heard. "Jellify!" he shouted, though no sound came. The tip of his wand flashed and Malfoy suddenly tipped over with his wobbly legs, dropping the stolen wand. The girl picked it up and stormed towards the dorms. Harry winced in sympathy for any Muggleborn who got stuck in Slytherin.

"Who the blazes put the Jelly Legs Jinx on me?" Draco demanded, trying to stand up. He struggled over to a couch and hoisted himself up on it, then removed his wand. "Unjellify."

Crabbe and Goyle were laughing as they sat across from him.

"It's not funny," Malfoy whined. "I bet it was that American kid. He's always sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. And he's a blood traitor just like the Weasleys."

Harry listened to the trio babble on for another ten minutes, throwing around their distatste for exams, their dislike of every professor besides Snape, and how 'Dumble-Bore' was an idiot to let Muggleborns into the school. Eventually, Draco looked up after a moment of silence. "I spoke with Snape, by the way."

"And?" Goyle said.

"He's going to give us special permission for a trip to Hogsmeade on the 24th. Dumbledore apparently approved of it too, the idiot. I hate to have to do the ritual in one night, but supposedly Christmas Eve is the best time to do magic that involves... well, you know."

Harry didn't know, but his imagination could fill in the blanks fairly well.

"So you're really going through with it?"

"Of course I am, I've already scheduled." Draco shook his head, then got up and headed towards the dorms. "I'm going to bed. You two do whatever it is you do."

After Malfoy was gone, Crabbe and Goyle looked at each other. "You think he knows?" Goyle said, his eyes wide.

Crabbe leaned closer to Goyle. "Naw, couldn't. We've been too careful. Nobody could ever know."

What Harry saw next would scar his mind for years to come.

_To be concluded.._


	2. Part Two

**Epiphany  
Part Two**

Harry paced back and forth in the Gryffindor common room, occasionally grabbing a chocolate reindeer from a communal pile that some of the older students had established on one of the numerous small tables in the room. Now that he knew the truth—that Malfoy was planning some sort of dark blood ritual on Christmas Eve—he had to figure out what to do. His first impulse was to pick Hermione's brain about blood rituals, but with her still away for the holiday, he tried to think like her instead. He'd need to do some research, and that entailed going to the library. Obviously, books on how to do blood rituals would be in the restricted section, but books that simply gave a list or explanation of them would be fair game.

Or so Harry's reasoning had gone. In reality, he couldn't find a bleeding thing. A book of common spells had a chapter on blood rituals, along with the disclaimer_ DO NOT ATTEMPT ANY OF THESE,_ but it only listed a few, and none of them with more than but the vaguest definitions.

_Blood curdling potion_, one paragraph had read, _is a potion that gives the creator the ability to instill unrelenting fear in the heart of a chosen target without the use of wand or psychic magic. It is illegal in all but eleven countries throughout the world._

"You think that's what Malfoy's doing?" Ron asked, putting the book down on the table and picking up a chocolate elf. "Trying to make someone afraid of him?"

Harry frowned. "Wouldn't surprise me. Probably tired of needing Crabbe and Goyle to back him up every time he decides to pick a fight."

"And it would explain why he went to Snape for help with it."

Harry nodded. At first he'd thought that Draco had asked Snape for the permission because Snape always favored the Slytherin students to a ridiculous degree, but if there was a potion to be made, the potions master was the professor to see. Well, unless you were a nosy Gryffindor student, in which case you were better off blabbing your rule-breaking plans to the headmaster himself and taking out the middle-wizard.

Harry adjusted his glasses. "I don't see any other option, Ron," he said, breaking the silent moment he'd been pondering the situation. "I'm going to sneak out of here and go to Hogsmeade that night as well."

"You sure? Maybe you should just tell Dumbledore about what you heard him say. You've already got yourself in a fat lot of trouble before and Dumbledore can't keep ignoring it without looking like he's playing favorites."

Harry paused. He'd thought of that, to be sure, but… it couldn't be that simple, could it? Dumbledore had already given Snape the okay to take Malfoy to Hogsmeade that day, so he apparently did not think that Malfoy was going to do something bad.

"Just tell him, Harry. And if he doesn't think there's a problem then—"

"Then I go to Hogsmeade myself," Harry said with an affirmative nod.

Ron blinked. "Actually I was going to say, 'then you figure he's right and don't worry about it.'"

**

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By the time Harry found himself in Dumbledore's office, any hope that there was nothing to worry about had all but vanished. Even as he approached the headmaster's desk, half a dozen owls were flying in or out of his window, carrying letters that Dumbledore was busy going over, skimming some and looking more intently at others. A couple he grunted at with little but a glance and tossed them into the crackling fire that burned in his office's fireplace. He set one letter down and grabbed a quill, quickly signing his name on another, before rolling the parchment up and sticking it in a tube. If Dumbledore was this busy, he'd probably barely heard about Snape's plan and okayed it just to get him out of the office.

"I'll be with you in just a moment, Harry," Dumbledore said, handing the tube to an owl and whispering the recipient's name.

After all the owls were gone, the headmaster took out his wand and waved it across his desk, instantly removing all the clutter. He sat with his hands folded and smiled at Harry, his eyes twinkling.

"Now, what did you need, Harry?"

"Malfoy, sir." Harry had stuffed his hands in his pockets because he was uncertain about his claim, and furthermore was more convinced he would have to take matters into his own hands than before.

"You need Mr. Malfoy?" Dumbledore said, picking up an Every-Flavor bean and eating it. "Surely you could have found him in the Great Hall at breakfast without my assistance."

Though he didn't betray anything with a smile, something about the gleam in the headmaster's eyes suggested that he was simply poking fun at Harry's nervousness—not because he was unhappy with Harry, but to get Harry to lighten up.

Harry gave a small chuckle in spite of himself. "No, sir. I mean that I think Draco Malfoy is up to something. I overheard him talking about going to Hogsmeade on Christmas Eve for—"

"This is quite true," Dumbledore said with a nod. "Professor Snape requested my personal approval for the trip. He said that several Slytherin students wished to do some last-minute Christmas shopping. Mr. Malfoy is hardly the only student going."

Christmas shopping? That was new. But then Snape very well couldn't tell the headmaster he was taking them for a dark arts ritual.

"Yes, but I overheard him talking, Malfoy, that is, with Crabbe and Goyle, and they said something about a ritual—involving blood."

Dumbledore's eyes suddenly grew serious, and he leaned forward and looked at Harry. "That's a very serious accusation, Harry," the ancient wizard said. "Do you have any proof? I don't expect you to lie to me, Harry, but to forbid the trip on your word alone is hardly fair to the other students."

Harry frowned, and wished his pockets were deeper so that he could stick his hands farther into them. "No, I have no proof."

"Well, I trust that Professor Snape won't allow any conduct against the Hogwarts rules while he's chaperoning the students. If you wish to go yourself, it would be best to see Professor McGonagall about organizing a trip for the Gryffindor students."

By the time Harry left the office, he had resolved two things: he was going to Hogsmeade on Christmas Eve, and it would _not _involve being chaperoned by Professor McGonagall. Unlike Snape, McGonagall would keep her own students on a very short leash.

Harry exhaled. It was time to consult the Marauders' Map.

**

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**

Harry had schemed with Ron to plot his route through Hogwarts' secret passages, but in the end he decided on the familiar one-eyed witch passage. He'd seen (on the map) the group of Slytherin students set out from their dungeon at exactly 5:00 PM, and suspected that they'd be heading back before the Christmas Eve dinner 8:00. That didn't give Harry much time, so he walked fast to the one-eyed witch and even faster through the tunnel, periodically casting a protection spell around his head to keep from bumping it on low-hanging rocks or dips in the tunnel's ceiling. He made it to the basement of Honeydukes at 5:40 and immediately put on his cloak and the Sound Cancelling Headset.

It was nearly dark when he stepped out onto the snow-covered streets of Hogsmeade, and it would only get darker. The Marauders' map useless outside the bounds of Hogwarts, Harry folded it up and stuffed it in his coat pocket. He immediately began looking around for Malfoy, running by a pair of Slytherin girls who stopped and pointed at the sudden noiseless appearance of footprints in the snow. Harry muttered to himself, making a mental note that he should think such things through more thoroughly in the future. He got off the road and started trudging through the grass. Halfway between Honeydukes and Gladrags', it started snowing, quickly increasing from light flurries to a minor blizzard.

Harry stumbled back onto the street and considered heading back to Honeydukes, or at least inside a building, but decided he'd go as far as Zonko's before giving up. He stumbled into Zonko's just as Blaise Zabini was leaving with a box of enchanted chalk that screeched like nails when scraped against a chalkboard. A couple of third years stared curiously at the snow that suddenly became visible when it fell off the bottom of Harry's shoes.

Harry let his fingers warm up a bit before heading back out, almost convinced he should give up and go home. But then a sign across the street caught his eye: _Spelling's Magebook Emporium._

The memory of the conversation he'd overheard in Snape's potions class was jostled in his mind, and Harry took off in that direction, crossing the busy street (right in front of Snape, who seemed to be having a devil of a time keeping track of the students through all the snow) and heading down the side road and over a small bridge that forded a stream perpendicular to the street. There was a large C-Shaped building behind the book shop, most of the windows darkened. The building looked ready to fall over, much as though it was designed by the same architect as the Shrieking Shack. Harry crept along the outside, around the back and then over to a window where a dim light emanated. He hoisted himself up onto a barrel outside and looked in.

And gasped to see Draco Malfoy staring out at him.

His heart skipped a beat before he remembered that he was invisible and inaudible, but it was enough to make him lose balance on the barrel, and he fell forward, grabbing the window sill with one hand and a gutter with the other. By this time, Malfoy had turned around approached a figure behind him, a haggard old wizard in a purple robe with scraggly grey hair and a long, crooked nose. Goyle was also with him, standing at the side of the room staring at the situation dumbly.

The old wizard had a sinister grin, Harry thought, and a couple of missing teeth to complete the picture.

"I'm ready," Malfoy said, his voice muffled by the window between Harry and himself. The old wizard nodded, and pulled out a long red wand, and began waving it over Malfoy's wrist; the Slytherin suddenly collapsed to his knees, and cried out in pain. Red mist rose from his vein, and flowed towards a small cauldron on the table behind them, directed by the old wizard's wand. The whole time, he was murmuring incantations in a language that Harry did not understand.

About this time, the wind picked up and caught' Harry's cloak, blowing it oblong across his body, suddenly making the lower half of his body visible. Harry shifted, turning away from the window and leaning back against the wall of the building. He could no longer see the ritual taking place, but he could still hear Malfoy crying out from the pain. After a while, the cries subsided. Harry slid down from the barrel and pressed his ear to the wall, partially removing the headphones.

He heard the voice of the old wizard. "It's done. A Blood Pearl."

Harry waited for a moment, and then hid against the side of the building as Draco and Goyle exited through the front door, Goyle shivering as he walked out into the cold. Draco was cradling something—presumably the Blood Pearl—in his hands. Harry took a step forward and felt a tug. He didn't hear anything, but suddenly, his legs turned visible as the magic of the lower part of the cloak flickered out. He stifled a curse and grabbed the tail of his invisibility cloak, pulling it up to take a look. The fabric had been caught on a nail and now bore a three-inch rip. Perfect.

Repairs would have to wait for later; it took a bit more than just a _reparo _spell to fix a complicated magical item, and Harry had to stop Malfoy. He glanced around the side of the building and saw Malfoy and Goyle ahead of him, partially obscured by the snow falling around them. Harry took out his own wand and aimed it carefully at Goyle's pocket, remembering where Goyle had kept his wand from his previous interactions with Malfoy and his goons.

"_Accio wand_," Harry whispered. Again no sound came due to the Headset, but the tip of his wand glowed slightly and seconds later Goyle's wand hovered over to him. Harry grabbed it and tossed it down in the shallow snow, then turned and ran behind the building where the ritual had taken place and out in between Malfoy and the high street through Hosgmeade. He pulled off the headset and half-malfunctioning cloak, dropping them in the snowy grass, and stopped, planting his feet on the small bridge.

He could see Malfoy and Goyle trudging through the snow in front of him, and Malfoy leaned forward and squinted when he saw Harry standing on the bridge, blocking his path. Malfoy's hand slipped into his pocket, and Harry removed his own wand, aiming it at Malfoy and Goyle.

"It's over, Malfoy," Harry said, trying to use his most dramatically appropriate voice. "I know about the ritual."

"Potter?" Malfoy drawled, expressing more disbelief than anything. Though his voice had more than a hint of contempt. "What the devil are you doing here?"

"You first," Harry said. "What are you doing making a Blood Pearl?"

"You insipid Muggle-lover, it's a Christmas present!" Draco spat the words. "Get the devil out of my way before I blast a hole in your head. Even if you managed to hit me first, there's no way you'll get us both."

At this point Goyle, who had been feeling around in his pockets, leaned over Malfoy's shoulder and said, "Uh, Draco, my wand is gone."

"Your w—your _wand_ is gone?" Draco stammered, his eyes flickering to Goyle for a split second. "Where the devil did you leave it?"

"It was in my pocket, honest," Goyle groaned. "It's just gone."

Harry smiled inwardly at the blow to Malfoy's bluster.

"Just throw the Pearl on the ground and nobody has to get blasted," Harry said. "I'm turning it in to Dumbledore."

Malfoy glanced at Goyle, then slowly reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a small brown jewelry box, then tossed it into a snowdrift at the side of the tiny street. "There, Potter. Take it."

Harry kept his wand leveled at Draco, meanwhile walking towards the spot where the box had fallen. He bent down to pick it up, keeping his wand aimed at Malfoy the whole time. As soon as his hand was on the box, Malfoy spoke.

"_Stupefy_!"

Harry lunged forward, dropping the jewelry box as a blood red stunner blast slammed into the snow behind him; he hit the ground hard and aimed his wand at Malfoy, trying to focus his thoughts. "_Expelli_—"

But Draco was faster. "_Expelliarmus_!"

A blast of energy slammed into Harry's hand and sent his wand flying, and he looked up to see Draco grin and aim his wand at him again. "_Stupefy_!"

A red flash filled Harry's vision, and his body was suddenly wracked with fatigue, his chest aching like he'd been hit dead center with an iron bludger. He looked up to see Malfoy standing over him, and then winced as another jolt of pain rocked him. Malfoy had kicked him!

"You really are an idiot, Potter," Draco said. "You think this is part of some sinister plot? You think the Dark Lord is hiding around every corner? You don't understand in the slightest. My family is filthy rich, so that means any gift I can give is just another meaningless display of wealth. Oh sure, it's great when my dad can buy the Quidditch team new brooms, and I thank the stars every day that don't live in a rickety old hovel like your weasel friend. But when you live in a world where everyone has everything, it's hard to give a gift that means a damn thing. And that's all this is."

Draco kicked Harry again for good measure, right in the ribs, and then stormed off. Goyle followed after him, complaining that he had to find his wand or his father would use the Cruciatus Curse on him.

After lying in the snow for what seemed like hours, Harry was able to pull himself to his feet, and, shivering, he collected his wand and cloak and made the long trudge back through the tunnel and into Hogwarts. He nearly ran into Filch on his way back to Gryffindor Tower, but managed to hide by covering himself in the half-malfunctioning cloak while hiding his visible lower body in the remnants of a swamp bomb that someone had set off in the clock tower courtyard.

When he finally got to his bed, he threw off his soaking wet clothes and collapsed onto the comforter. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

**

* * *

**

At the Christmas lunch, there was much chatter about who had gotten what for the holiday, and nobody's gift was receiving more attention than that of Pansy Parkinson. Someone had left her—anonymously—a golden ring, set with a pearl as red as the Hogwarts Express. There where whispers about what it really was, and though the school had a good idea of who had given it to her, just as many more scoffed at the idea, because certain _that_ boy would never do anything so selfless.

Harry didn't quite understand until Ginny handed him a book opened to a page about the magical item in question.

"The Blood Pearl," she said. "Not only does it require great pain on the part of the blood donor, but a legitimate one set into a piece of jewelry will transfer any curse or hex placed on the wearer back to the donor. It was designed as a method of protecting the vulnerable against things like the Cruciatus curse."

"Couldn't they just take the ring off?" Ron asked.

"Apparently the ring can only be taken off by the recipient," Harry read from the book. "It's possible to force it off, but you'd need a very powerful spell to do it."

"So Draco made it impossible for anyone to harm Pansy with magic," Ginny said. "That's uncharacteristically sweet. It's almost as if he weren't an evil, foul, loathsome little cockroach."

"But we know he is," Harry said.

Ron shrugged. "Sure, but like Sirius said, the world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters. Sometimes gits like Malfoy can do something noble, and sometimes good people can do some bad magic."

"Yeah," Ginny said. "You should see Mum when Dad forgets her birthday."

The three shared a laugh and continued to enjoy the rest of the season, Harry coming to understand perhaps a little better that whether you are good or evil is not set in stone, but the result of thousands of little choices throughout the course of a lifetime. And that was, in its own way, a bit of an epiphany.

* * *

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who read and doubly so to everyone who reviewed. Also, many thanks to the Harry Potter Wiki and Harry Potter Lexicon for help with many of the little details.


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